


Gethsemane

by voksen



Series: WKverse [57]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Electricity, Other, Self-Harm, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-22
Updated: 2009-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:26:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voksen/pseuds/voksen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Farfarello at Koua.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gethsemane

1\. He sleeps, and sleeping, dreams: a place where nothingness wraps around him tight and close like a straitjacket, where he can't tell up from down or himself from other, a featureless void. And yet he doesn't feel alone; something, someone is with him, as close as his soul - so he waits, patient from long practice in lonelier, bleaker places than this.

Time passes; long or short, fast or slow, he has no way of telling. He can't count by breaths or heartbeats when he has neither, and endless streams of mental numbers with no meaning have never appealed to him.

 

2\. When the blankness begins to coalesce, it's no more sensical: an eternity of steel blue above him, a dark, flat floor beneath.

There's something he has to do here; the conviction comes to him gradually, in the same way the world formed around him. It feels like truth, solid and heavy, and he holds to it, looking for the rest: what, why, who?

The sky bursts into brilliant orange flame; when it dies, two men shimmer into being in front of him. Neither is armed, but they both stand as if they're dangerous; something about each of them tugs irritatingly at his memory.

"This feels so empty," the one says, and the voice, the tone: he knows him. He doesn't understand his appearance, but he's so _Crawford_ that he wonders how he could have missed it.

The other gasps, stammers, and that's enough. Farfarello stalks forwards, taking form as he moves, flesh, clothes, blade all as one.

There's no blood when he stabs him, but he feels the give of his body, sees the pain and fear. He leaps lightly back as the stranger's arms come up, feels himself fading again, leaving the physical as easily as he'd taken it.

 

3\. Crawford's voice lingers, even after everything has faded to blue, then again to featureless black: "Evolution isn't something that is created... It's what survives!"

Farfarello opens his eyes: the world is strange with a depth he hasn't known in years, and what he sees is _fire_ , raging around him, broken up in mazy pathways by shattered chunks of concrete. The taste of smoke and blood are thick in his mouth, but a harsh, electric burn along his arm distracts him: it's not quite like anything else he's ever known.

 _Is everything all right?_ It's Nagi, but he's not really paying attention: the heat surrounding him is strange, uncomfortable. He steps closer to the nearest patch of fire, stretches his hand out to it, feels that same rough drag in his fingers as well. It's compelling and yet at the same time makes him want to stop, pull away; he can't immediately understand why.

 _I'll be fine._ Crawford again, mental voice resonating in him strangely. _Schuldig?_

Is it...pain? He pulls his hand back, looks at the tips of his fingers - reddened but not blistered - puts them in his mouth, feels the sensation ease slightly.

 _Schuldig?_

Is this what it feels like?

 _Schuldig! Answer me!_

 _Yeah,_ he thinks, and then - why had he answered for Schuldig?

Why wouldn't he have?

Shaking it off, he turns quickly, moves away, nearly trips over a corpse: a clean kill, he sees, instantly assessing, a broken neck... and somehow he knows it's his, but he can't remember doing it. It's disconcerting; he never forgets things like this, and it's not his style in the first place, is it?

When he bends to look more closely at the crumpled body, a lock of long red hair swings into view, and that's not right either, except that it is.

 

4\. On the other side of the growing fire, something catches alight with a roaring crackle that puts him on edge. No matter how strange the situation, it won't be improved by being trapped in a burning building.

 _Can you get to Schuldig?_ Crawford asks.

There's a brief pause while he edges along the wall where the fire's thinnest, before Nagi responds: _I think so._

He has half a second to wonder why they're talking in his head before a breath of air down the hallway makes the flames swirl and gutter, parting slightly, and he's moving, leaping through the gap - and it _hurts_ , and at the same time it feels almost unbearably good. The combination threatens to overwhelm him, but he pulls himself to his feet and starts walking again. He doesn't know where he is, but getting the fuck out still sounds like a good idea.

The hallway is long, doors branching off every so often, but something tells him they aren't important, so he keeps going.

Nagi, again: _Schuldig, stay with us._ He sounds tired, worn out, though there's confidence in his voice that Farfarello doesn't remember, but...

 _I'm here._

Farfarello stops in the middle of the hallway, uncertain: he hadn't meant to think that. _Had_ he thought it? He glances down at his hands, and are they longer than they should be, finer-boned? There's blood and soot on his fingers, his face, in his long hair, and something is very much not right.

There's a soft, hollow rushing noise just behind him; he spins, and sees Nagi kneeling on the floor, looking not at all the way he'd last seen him- but somehow he isn't actually surprised.

"Schuldig," Nagi says, getting up and brushing that odd hair away from his eyes. The smell of scorched ozone surrounds him like thunder.

Farfarello glances behind himself involuntarily, looking for Schuldig, at the same time as he says "I don't need you to babysit me, kid."

Nagi blinks. Farfarello stares back.

 _We need to be out of here before Kritiker brings it down,_ Crawford reminds them acidly.

Something shoves at him, hard, and he staggers into the wall, barely hearing Nagi's loud _"Schuldig!"_. It hurts more than the ache in his arm and the heat of the fire combined, a tearing pain, like something in his brain is ripping apart.

And then, _Get the **fuck** out of my head, du Gottverdammter--_

 

5\. --and he wakes, hair sodden with sweat that dries on his skin with an unsettling chill. When he raises his hands to look at them, they're his own, blunt and scarred, and his vision's back to normal as well.

Beside him, Sally stirs and murmurs softly. He slips out of the bed carefully, though she'll no doubt wake soon; the sun is setting, dim light leaking around their ratty curtains, and it's been a good couple hours since they'd gone to bed.

Farfarello runs his hands over his face, feeling the scars all where they should be, through his cropped hair, then glances in the cracked mirror, half expecting to see Schuldig leering out at him. The closest it comes to that, though, is that his hair is starting to shed Sally's red dye, fading to a dull orangey-yellow.

Sally's breathing settles back into a deep, even rhythm, but he's awake and more than awake, adrenaline thrumming through him, his body primed for a battle that isn't there. And he remembers the _pain_ , how it felt to hurt in body instead of soul.

He closes the bedroom door softly behind him, paces the short length of their flat barefoot, naked. It's not enough to calm him, he knows it: he wants to fight, wants to feel blood spill rich over his hands, the blood he'd been cheated of in Crawford's mind. He wants to hurt, and he wants, _needs_ to feel it again. It isn't fair, which is, fucking hell, it's stupid, because if anyone knows life's not fair it's him.

He swears under his breath - at nothing, at himself, at God, at Schuldig - and heads for the kitchen. Half a minute and a ruined toaster later, he has a length of cord, the end stripped bare, humming with power. The shock jolts through him as he closes his hand around it, rough, harsh, undirected compared to his old electrodes, not as powerful, either. More than that, it's only a shadow of the real thing; now he knows what he's missing, what he can't have.

The wire leaves deep burns on him, stark red and white against his skin; they'll heal by midnight if he doesn't keep at them, and he doesn't - doesn't want them, doesn't want to be driven to this, doesn't want this memory etched on his skin.

Forcing his hand open, he drops the cord, letting it spark faintly in midair, beckoning. Sally will hate it if she wakes up to this, but somehow he still can't stop, slides the unscarred back of his hand lightly against the bare wire, electricity juddering through him like ants over his nerves, like a ghost, like a succubus.

He goes to his knees, bracing himself; brushes it again, a caress: it's sweet and hot like fire all through him, bringing him hard and ready and eager like Sally's touch, but he tries to convince himself that it hurts.

It's a lot harder to lie to himself when he knows the truth.


End file.
